[C][AU][Future AU] Messages

"You mean I had this guy waiting around for nothing?"

He smacked the top of the car a couple of times before shoving a load of money to the man through the window. It should cover more than enough of the fair.

"Just twenty? Shit."

Lucas jumped into the jeep, sliding in the middle seat.

"Commander."

"Well, the Red paladins aren't known to be the smartest," Fleck teased back in response.

"Romano," Emilia drawled back, dark eyes turning to him in the rearview mirror.

Fleck began East, following the dusty road. "Buckle up, Red. This is gonna be worse than that time through the asteroid belt, when we were chasing Sendak."

"Bad for you. Luckily the red lion and I were fine."

He leaned back, grin on his face, his arms cockily stretched behind his head.

"We may not be the smartest, but we are definitely the best fliers."

The red lion was so small and fast that sometimes he had difficulty back when he was still a teen to keep together with the team. Sometimes he would dart off after someone on a lone chase. It never worked out too well.

Teamwork was the core of Voltron.

"Oh yeah? Was that before or after Sendak clipped Red with a laser beam? Remind me."

He turned off the beaten path and onto a much more uneven field, ploughing right through it and the waist-high fauna.

"I'm still having trouble believing all this, Fleck. Aliens and wars and Power Rangers ripoffs." Emilia clicked her tongue unhappily.

"I mean, Voltron's like ten thousand years old. I'm pretty sure it came first."

With the seatbelt only loose over his lap, Lucas leaned forward and rested his elbows on either backrest.

"Oh, come one, Voltron is totally a rip of... of what was that old Altean show that Giacinto used to watched called again? Bo-something? Shit, I can't remember, but it was probably one of the worst things I have ever seen and yet we binge-watched the whole six seasons."

Well, as best as a group of aliens could binge watch a season when Voltron was on call at any moment.

"Bothruila," Fleck answered.

They met a particularly nasty bump that jostled Lucas roughly.

"That show totally called the future, too. Galra playing the bad guy. Ragtag team of fighters. Even had the fucking crazy Iqbal helping us - uh, them - out. The show even predicted Slav!"

Idly he wondered how Slav was doing. He hadn't heard from the Iqbal in a long time.

Lucas snapped his fingers.

"That was it! Bothruila!"

He let out a happy laughing, reminiscing.

"I mean, I'm way hotter then that red paladin, but man that was crazy thinking back on it." He turned his eyes up, speculating. "I still think some Altean had future sight or something since they fucked around with quintessence before it was popular. Instead of acting on it, they thought it would make a fun but stupid show."

Lucas had zero ideas on how Altean alchemy worked, but he was still stubborn on that theory.

Fleck shook his head.

"Because if you saw the enslavement of the world by Zarkon, your first thought would be let's make it into a fucking cartoon about a group of randomers in way over their head."

If anyone actually foresaw this shit and did nothing about it, he was going to travel into the past and kick their fucking asses personally. Then maybe younger, stupider Zarkons, for some fucking revenge.

Fleck grinned and his eyes lit up. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with S."

Krolia's ship was dead ahead.

Lucas' head ducked low, so he could see. His own face split into a grin.

It was a fairly small ship, a galra cargo ship by the looks of it, pocking through the trees. A landing that was impossible for any earth plane to achieve.

"Do you think if we ran up and jumped into her arms, she will catch us?"

"Yeah," Fleck snorted. "Then throw you into a tree. Don't you know Kro by now?"

In the passenger seat, Emilia had gone stock-still. "Holy fucking shit. Madre di Dio." Her fingers lifted to her forehead, and she muttered a prayer as she crossed herself.

Fleck laughed as she parked the car a few yards from the ship.

He bounced out of the car and strode towards the ship.

"Yo, Kro, where you at?" he called out. He couldn't see her. Calling her Kro was certain to have her on his heels in seconds.

The ship opened and made a stairway down for Krolia. She made her way towards the trio of humans, her lips kicked up.

"I told you, I will make you regret that."

She pulled him into a hug. A long one.

As with everyone else, she had thought she would never see those two again.

As Lucas approached, not attempting to run into her arms, she pulled him into the hug too before pulling back.

"Glad you're on time. You only had four doboshes left."

He returned her hug whole-heartedly, squeezing her tight.

"You keep threatening that. I'm wondering when you're going to cash in." He pressed a kiss to her cheek when she peeled back to hug Red.

Emilia stood in complete shock.

Fleck wrapped an arm around his sister's shoulders. "Kro, you're such a stickler! You'd have waited more than ten doboshes and you know it." She couldn't fool him. "This is my sister, Emilia."

"You... resemble her greatly."

Was that bad to say? Because she felt humans resembled each other too greatly. But there were a few similarities that they uniquely shared, she supposed.

Krolia clapped the Emilia on the shoulder, overshadowing her.

"I have heard a thing or two about you. You sound like a strong commander. Earth is in good hands."

"Your xenophobia's showing again, Kro," he teased lightly.

He was surprised she hadn't lashed out at him yet. He'd had to have called her Kro or Lia at least half a dozen times in the last quintent. Usually he'd be eating dirt by now.

Emilia's mouth opened, lips quivering for a long moment. Then she straightened her shoulders. "Not nearly, now I know you're real." Her gaze turned to her brother, then back to the tall Alien woman. "But it will be."

Fleck brushed off the suddenly tense atmosphere. "Voltrons got a special investment into Earth. You're protected." With three of the five paladins hailing from Earth, there was no way that Voltron would ever allow a malicious invasion of Earth.

Krolia nodded.

No more planets will be destroyed or used over a war. Not unless she can help it.

Which reminded her.

"We do need to go. We have to find some quintessence to power this ships wormhole engine or it will take us Deca-Phoebs to get to the castle unless we can signal to them to come to us."

She eyed them both.

"I will give you both a doboshe." Then, as an afterthought, she clenched her fist and brought it to her chest in salute to the commander. "Vrepit Sa."

She was part of New Daibazaal's military now. Most of the blades took important roles in overseeing the new way forward for the ex-Galra Empire.

Without prompt, she walked back up to the ship, Lucas following.

Fleck watched the two head inside the ship before turning to Emilia.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, hugging her close.

"Carry on doing what you're doing. Teach the kids. Keep the family close. Tell them that I love them."

His lips quirked up. "And keep an eye on the sky. Aliens aren't going to stay away forever. It'll be good for the world to open up a little. Voltron will be there to watch over Earth from up there. You watch over it from down here, okay?"

Emilia gripped Fleck's shoulder tightly. "Look after yourself, Hank."

"I will."

When he stepped into the ship's cockpit, he ambled towards Krolia, sat in the captain's chair. "So where are we going to find quintessence in this system?"

Lucas sat in the co-pilots seat. There were no other seats, except a crate and a hard, metal floor. He looked smug.

"This is an old ship, so it has a radar and an extractor on board, it's just nowhere near as powerful as actual extractor ships."

She pressed a few buttons on the keyboard then began the ship's takeoff.

"The smallest planet is on the outskirts of your solar system has energy coming from it, luckily. I'm not too sure what it is called, it isn't registered on here."

"Better be Pluto," he muttered to himself. Ten years and now hundreds of planets under his belt, he was still sore over Pluto being demoted from a planet.

Fleck didn't care about not having a seat. He was more than happy leaning against the back of Krolia's chair.

To entertain himself, he began playing with the wispy hairs at the nape of Krolia's neck, just above the high collar of her uniform.

"How long are we pit-stopping there to extract?"

A soft rumble came from her chest. A purr. She let it happen, it had been a while since she could relax around someone.

Under Lucas breath, he muttered: "I still can't get over that."

"I'm not too sure what it is called, but it is the ninth planet from he sun. Very small."

"Shit, that is Pluto," Lucas muttered. He had always said it couldn't be a planet.

Krolia ignored him.

"We just need enough to make one jump near the castle, and this is a small ship. So a just about... fifteen doboshes?"

"Right?! How dare they make Pluto a dwarf?" he huffed, completely personally insulted for the planet.

His fingers continued to tease through the fine hairs idly.

"At least we know now that the rest of the universe thinks it's a planet." That snuffed some of his anger, at least. Pluto was still a planet somewhere.

"Fifteen doboshes isn't too bad." His nails rain gently over her purple skin.

"It's hardly a dwarf planet," krolia snorted.

Lucas slung himself more comfortable on the seat. He had become accustomed to sleeping rough, but he still enjoyed sleeping in the luxury of comfort.

"Well, whatever, wake me up when we get to the castle. I don't want to be too hungover."

Krolia hummed, still purring quietly, arching as nails gently scratched at her skin. Then tension in her shoulders slowly dropped.

"It shouldn't be, the extraction," she said, continuing their conversation, "this is an old ship, but we only need a little bit. No more then what it can't replenish."

"Of course," he agreed in a low voice.

"We're not the Empire." Take no more than the planet could replenish. He didn't want any more dead planets because people weren't considerate.

Especially not Pluto.

He tugged lightly on a small lock of hair at the nape of her neck before turning to the light teasing of nails.

Krolia glanced up when he tugged on the lock of hair, then back at the screen in front of them. The purr resumed.

"No, we're not."

They continued their ascent out of orbit and far enough on a track that she could put the ship on auto-pilot for a moment.

She turned in her seat, pushed herself up only a little to kiss him firmly on the mouth, her hand cupping the back of Fleck's neck to bring him forward.

He dipped down at the gentle guidance of her hands, leaning over the back of the chair to return her kiss.

Like hers, his lips were firm and his hands found her ribs, pulling her closer, despite the chair being between them.

The kiss turned desperate. Needy.

Krolia pushed herself out of the seat, still leaving pressing her lips and clashing her teeth with Fleck as she stood. Her body pressed against his, trapping him against the seat of the chair.

She caught his teeth firmly between her teeth and pulled roughly, the hand on the nack of his pulling his hair into a fist.

"I have a name. Use it."